Harry Potter, the Next Step
by goldenthestral
Summary: Its been many years since Harry left to have a life. No scandal, just grew up. He has grown up but cant shake the nagging feeling that something is up. and it is...
1. Chapter 1

**Harry Potter and the Next Step**

Date of publishing the chapter: 15/12/2016

 **Disclaimer:** Don't own Harry Potter, and no profit is being made by publishing this story. But the ideas for this story are mine.

 **Chapter 1: Here and Now**

It was nearing Christmas. A few more days and the year will turn over a new page. Celebrations were beginning to start and the mood was festive. A few days when most people wanted to forget the bad things that had happened over the last year and go through a rest programme. Kind of a reset button and then get ready to face the same music over and over again.

Mostly unknown to his part of the world, Harry Potter was just in a morose mood. He had moved on from his earlier life. Soon after the death of Voldemort, things had started going crazy. For a few months, he was the hero, the saviour and what not. But soon, it became too much. He shied away from the attention, but Ginny basked in it. Soon, their paths diverged. It was silent. I guess everybody grew up.

By 2001, he had come into his inheritances from both the magical and non-magical sides of the financial reserves. He was not hurting for money, Black fortune added to it. Soon he decided to go away. Away from the pressure, with no more nagging from Hermione or laziness of Ron, he became an avid reader. He had been gifted with huge magical reserves and his near death experiences (all of them) had increased his potential to use magic. As he came into his own, he could feel it becoming easier. He had to relearn and re-optimise much of his occlumency. This too passed. His travels, easy nature and ability to spend money without much thought opened doors that he never knew existed. From ruins of Machu Picchu to Egypt, India and Nepal, hidden depth of Mongolia, China and Japan, he grew. He met with a few very interesting women. Each had a contribution to the person he had become.

No longer a shy, insecure young man with a hot temper. With a good life, came self assurance. From not needing anybody as a safety mechanism to the self assurance of a man who knew what he wanted. From crushes to likes, and i dare say, a few loves. He always fell for confident, strong and independent women. These were the qualities that always kept them apart as well.

Most of his alliances ended amicably. He looked back fondly at most of them.

But for the last few months, he had this feeling in the bones. Something was coming up. Something that he would not like. Something that would take him outside his cocoon.

Often his thoughts went to his childhood friends. He was in sporadic touch with them. But somehow the distance in time had gone farther than the road they had walked together in childhood.

As he saw a few people down from his apartment in Florida, he had an urge to run away. It was strange, but he had long ago learnt to trust his instincts. Making a decision, he started packing.

Because of his travels, he had learnt to travel well prepared. With the help of magic, it was not that difficult. He had a small locket around his neck. It was the key to the his storage locker, sort of. He had learnt the trick from an Aghori baba in the Himalayas. It was like a pocket dimension outside the time and space continuum. If he really had to, he could access it without the key as well, but the locket made it easier.

He touched the emerald stone on the simple locket and closed his eyed. He was well set. The things he needed from the apartment, appeared into his astral apartment. The things he needed, appeared in his jacket pocket.

Smiling to himself, he cast an eye around, appreciating the view and then started to walk down and out of his apartment building.

Suddenly, he felt lighter. Like a weight had been pulled off his shoulders. He started to smile and whistle as he exited the building.

God smiled back.

He never saw the car that ran off the road and slammed right into him, nor did he see a strange burst of light that engulfed him for a second before he knew no more. As he landed, there was still a smile on his face.

It seemed he was smiling back as well.

The next great adventure had just begun.


	2. Chapter 2 : Before the Next Step

**Harry Potter and the Next Step**

Date of publishing the chapter: 19/12/2016

 **Disclaimer:** Don't own Harry Potter, and no profit is being made by publishing this story. But the ideas for this story are mine.

 **Chapter 2: Before the next step**

Eyes opened and shut again. It was a bright light, a little too bright. As governed by human reflexes, his hands went to cover his eyes. He started blinking and slowly, his eyes adjusted to the glare. It was quite cold.

He put his head down again, and instantly shot up and looked to his left. Instead of the flat land that he had been expecting, his head had landed on something soft. Green eyes met green eyes. Recognition and disbelief at the same moment made his face go odd. It was almost comic, but then the tears started. Not a word had been said. But such is the bond between a mother and her child that none were needed.

She slowly pulled Harry into her embrace and he let it all out. Of things that he knew, only thought he felt and things that he had not even said to himself. From the pain of growing unloved, to the same being continued for most of his life. Such is the cost of fame and power that despite everything, he had lead a mostly lonely life.

But he was no longer a child, one who would accept such miracles. Rather, he was the older one. He, now at forty five, and lily still looked twenty one.

He brought himself together. He still was not sure what had happened? Had he died, was he dreaming or in a shaman sleep that he had learnt sometime back? There was only one question that over rode all..

"Mom?", He said haltingly. More of a half statement and half question.

Lily nodded and the tears started for both of them once again. For Harry, it was cathartic. He felt free. He never knew when he dozed off. But he had never felt lighter or happier.

Some time later, harry opened his eyes and saw himself lying on a snow bed. He startled and looked around. For the moment he saw nobody and a thousand doubts raced through his mind. But then he heard his mother walking down from behind. Actually, he just heard foot steps. He turned and saw his mother. All was good again.

Now the mind of the adult Harry started to get clear and questions started to form. Faster than he could think of answers. I guess it showed on his face. Lily understood but waited for him to ask the first question.

"Ok! What is going on? Am I dead? How are you here, other wise? Oh, and where are we?" before he could say more, lily raised her hand and stopped him.

"What do you know of how you survived the killing curse?", She asked.

Totally baffled at the change in topic, Harry replied the only thing he could. "Nothing with certainty. Professor Dumbledore thought it was you who had given me protection that saved me"

"Yes! He was sort of right, but not entirely so. Wait and listen to me before you ask your next list of questions. You will shortly know why i am asking this:

Harry nodded and waited for Lily to continue.

"When James and I heard about the prophecy, we both worked on it differently. He got into doing everything to make sure we all were safe. But I, on the other hand, turned to finding ways to save us if your Dad failed."

"When you were nearly 3 months old, I finally found the solution. It came to me. I cant say how or from where, but it did. We all knew that the dark tosser would use the killing curse to kill you. It was the only safe way for him to kill you. So i researched the Killing Curse. More than anybody else in the history. I had the resources of the ancient house of Potter behind me. How it actually works is that the curse breaks the bond between the body and the soul. Without the bond, the soul just dissipates. The curse works on the Astral Plane, a world of energy parallel to our own. That is why it needs extreme emotions to power it and break the reality barrier. That is also why no shield can stop it. Physical objects can, more so because they have existence in our astral plane along side our body as a physical manifestation of our belief. But a shield is energy which is only existing on one plane and hence, the spell just ignores it."

"Now, I had to find a way for you to be protected on the astral plane. I could not find anything."

Harry raised his eyebrows questioningly. Not sure where this all was going to, but waited. Lily looked pained at remembering all this. He felt that she too needed to get it all out of her chest. So just like she had offered him unconditional support, so did he and waited for her to continue.

"Then I came up with a rather dumb idea. What if there were two souls in your body? I had already done some research on the horcruxes and knew about them. But I had two major issues, First, there had never been a living horcrux (that in itself defeated the purpose) and your age. The first one was a gamble, but I got some good news regarding your age. Several people believed that a child's soul recognised it's mother's soul. After all, they had shared the same body for so many months."

"So after a lot of research, I made you my Horcrux!"

Harry had the shock of his life, or whatever this was. He could not stop "What!" escaping his lips.

Lily nodded and continued, through her tears and guilt.

"Yes. I believed that if Voldemort got through and tried to use the killing curse on you, the curse would take my part of soul. It was a small part of me and not in its original body. It had a weaker grip and connection with your body. I theorised that the spell would break the connection between my soul fragment and your body, and the backlash would be enough to kill him or at least incapacitate him."

The more Harry thought about it, more he believed it to be brilliant. No wonder they called lily the most brilliant witch of her age. But then, how did Voldemort ended up inside him? He asked so.

"I think it was because, he had made too many horcruxes and when caught in the backlash, it lost its own grip on its own body. My soul had left any empty space in your body and it latched on. So I started the entire "and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives."

"I made it a self fulfilling prophecy. My actions lead to all the mess your life became. I am so so sorry"

and lily finally lost it and started crying uncontrollably.

Harry, lost in the real story of his life, did not know how to react. All the other questions that were in his head all flew away as he absorbed this amazing story.

Too numb to react and just sat there as a statue.


End file.
